


38.8895° N, 77.0358° W

by BridgetteIrish



Series: Winslow [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Gen, Goodbyes, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 13:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15908979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BridgetteIrish/pseuds/BridgetteIrish
Summary: Winn has one final stop before he takes off for the future.





	38.8895° N, 77.0358° W

“Ms. Grant, front gate has a visitor asking for you.”

Cat rolled her eyes and returned to her work.  “Tell Danny Concannon he can wait until the press briefing like everyone else.  He doesn’t get a head start on this one.”

Her assistant, a baby-faced but brave young man with a head for politics and enough spine to stand up to Cat once in awhile, stepped into the office.

“It isn’t Danny, Cat.  It’s an Agent Schott? He says he’s FBI, but he has insanely high clearance.  He’s already on his way. Security just called us as a courtesy.”

“Winslow,” Cat whispered, springing to her feet.  A hundred thoughts ran through her head. If Winn was here with no warning it could only be one thing.  Was Kara all right? Was she in trouble? Missing? She’d secure a flight and leave immediately. She rounded her desk and met her assistant’s eyes. “Listen carefully, David, call everyone in my contacts with access to a private plane or charter.  Get me a direct flight to National City before sundown tonight. Get me Hank Henshaw at the FBI as soon as possible and as soon as Mr. Schott gets here you will shut that door and not enter it again until we come out, understood?”

“Yes ma’am.”  David turned to leave the office and collided with a smiling Winn.

“She’s fine!” Winn shouted breathlessly around David’s shoulder.  “Kara’s fine. I’m not here… officially. I just… needed to talk to you, Ms. Grant.”

A wave of relief passed through Cat and she sunk back against the front of her desk to hide the fact that her legs had turned to jelly.  She gained her composure quickly. “Well, you could stand there shouting in my outer office or you could come in and tell me what you’ve been up to, Winslow.”

Winn grinned and wrapped Cat into a warm hug before she could protest.  “Careful, Winn. I can’t let my staff know I’m not a complete dragon.” She tapped him heartily on his shoulder and he stepped away, tucking his hands in his back pockets.

“Right,” he chuckled.  “Sorry. Just missed you, I guess.”

Cat turned her attention back to David, who was looking away discreetly.  “David, scratch those instructions. I’m about to make your day even more impossible.  You have fifteen minutes to find me a family size package of Red Vines.” She glared at him pointedly.  “Not Twizzlers. Red Vines. Secure an empty conference room and get it set up with a projector, X-Box and the latest Walking Dead game.”

She turned to a nearby cabinet and pulled out two heavy-bottomed tumblers and a decanter of a dark caramel liquor.  She looked back to the two young men gaping at her from the doorway. “Chop Chop!” She waved her hand and David was gone.

Cat poured two healthy glasses of scotch and handed one to Winn.  “So, you didn’t just fly across the country because you missed me, Winslow.  Spill.”

Winn took the offered glass and drained it, handing it back for more.

Cat was impressed.  Winn had grown a lot since she’d last seen him.  He looked more confident, a bit more haunted, but grounded and strong.  She poured him another and handed it over silently.

“I, uh, came to say goodbye.”

Cat tilted her head curiously.  She spotted tears glistening in the corners of his eyes and it caused a lump to spring unbidden into her own throat.

“For God’s sake, Winslow, don’t tell me you’re dying.”

Winn chuckled nervously.  “Not exactly.”

Now Cat was genuinely curious.  Winn was open and honest and effusive almost to a fault.  It wasn’t like him to be cagey, even when ensconced in top Supergirl secrecy.  Cat took a sip and waited. He’d open up, given enough awkward silence. He couldn’t help himself.

Instead, he took her gently by the elbow and guided her to the large picture window that looked out over the South Lawn.  With an arm around her shoulders he pointed with his other hand to the sky above the city.

“Look really closely just above the point of the Washington monument.  See those three sort of glowing lights hidden in that cloud?” 

“Really?  UFOs? I realize you’re a hopeless nerd, darling, but even you don’t call every light in the sky a flying saucer.”

Winn squeezed her shoulder.  “UFO would imply that ship is unidentified.  It isn’t. It’s very much identified. And it’s taking me… away.”

“Away?  Away where?”

“When.”

“What?”

Winn finished his drink again, set his glass on Cat’s desk and took her shoulders in his hands, meeting her eyes.  “That ship is taking me and a team of superheroes to the future to save the world. I don’t know what’s going to happen and I don’t know when I’ll be back, but…” he took a deep breath, “I couldn’t leave without telling you goodbye.  So, they let me make a quick detour.”

Cat’s jaw dropped open.  She knew better than to call him a liar.  The truth was clear in his tear-filled eyes.  “So, just like that, you’re gallivanting across time to, what, become a hero?”  She drew Winn’s hand into her own. “You already are a hero, Winslow, you don’t need to go away to prove that.”

“They need me.”

“She needs you!  We need you!” A tear fell down her cheek and Winn boldly brushed it away.  She pulled away and polished off her own drink, slamming the glass down on her desk.  “And she’s just letting you go? Just like that?”

“It wasn’t her decision, Cat.  It was mine. You got to leave, to have a new adventure.  We can’t all just be beholden to the will of Supergirl.”

Cat nodded.  “She comes to visit me.  It’s a matter of a few minutes for her to see me whenever she wants.”

“Well, she doesn’t love me exactly the same way, does she.”

“Winn.”

“It’s okay!”  He laughed. “Cat, that isn’t what I meant.  She’s still my best friend. And yes, she’s letting me go.  She knows this is something I need to do, just like she knew when you needed to leave.  You found your way back to her. I will too.” Winn leaned against Cat’s desk and looked back out to the sky.  Cat settled in next to him. He nudged her shoulder gently. “I know I shouldn’t still need your approval, y’know, you being my friend now and not my boss, but I think there’s still a part of me that wants your blessing, before I head back to the future.”

Cat shook a finger at him.  “Points off for the bad 80s movie reference, Winslow.  But if it’s my blessing you want, you have it.” Her voice broke a little and he took her hand in his again.  “I’m glad you came to see me.”

“I’ll be back.”

“I know.”

With the ghost of a memory of a really bad day in the back of both of their minds, Cat lowered her head gently to Winn’s strong shoulder and let another tear fall as he leaned his head atop hers.

A knock on her office door stood them both up.  “Ms. Grant, your conference room is ready.”

“Thank you, David.  One more stress relief session, for old time’s sake?” she asked.

“I got a little time, but I warn you, I’ve been practicing, and something tells me you haven’t had much free time.”

Cat sauntered from the room.  “You underestimate how stressful this job is, dear boy.  Hold my calls, David.”

 

XX

 

“Damn, Ms. Grant.  When you get good at something, you get really good.”

Cat polished off the last Red Vine and tossed her controller on the table.  “You know I don’t like losing.”

Winn sobered and stood.  “I gotta go. They gave me until sundown.”  They looked together at the orange light making its way through the shaded windows.

Cat stood too and drew him into a tight hug.  “You brave, stupid boy. You come home safe, okay?”

He sniffed.  “Okay,” he breathed into her shoulder.

“Don’t sniffle all over my Stella McCartney.”

“Right.”  He pulled back and met her shining eyes.

“Bye, Winslow.”

He leaned forward and planted a gentle kiss on her cheek.  “Bye.”

 

XX

 

Cat stood on the balcony of her brownstone scanning the sky.  She knew the three shining lights of Winn’s ship were long gone and probably centuries away by now, but she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d turn up back on the same day he left, leaving no time for her to miss him at all.  It would be just like him. She smiled to herself. Instead of a spaceship a familiar and very welcome sight appeared in the Washington night sky.

“Hi,” Kara smiled as she landed on the balcony.

“Hello, darling.  Nice flight?” She drew Kara close and planted a light, teasing kiss against her cool lips.

Kara nodded.  “I was feeling a little unmoored tonight.  I needed to fly and I needed to see you.”

Cat sunk into Kara’s arms.  “I’ll miss him.”

Kara kissed the crown of Cat’s head.  “Me too,” she whispered into Cat’s hair.

Cat drew away.  “Can I ask you something very personal?”

“Of course,” Kara answered warily.

“How long will you live?”

Kara sighed.  She didn’t seem surprised by the question.  It was evident she had given this particular issue quite a bit of thought.  Cat imagined she and Alex had hashed it out and run tests and consulted Clark.

“It isn’t really clear.  Could be a hundred years, could be two hundred.  It could be forever. There’s no way to pinpoint it exactly.  Alex has a theory about the half life of my cell energy and is trying to reconcile that with the regenerative power I get from the sun, but it’s a lot of earth math that doesn’t really jive with the kryptonian math I’ve been running and neither of us has really landed on a solid-”  Cat laid her fingers across Kara’s lips to quiet her. 

“Shhh, darling, breathe.”

Kara released a warm breath against Cat’s fingertips and Cat leaned up and replaced them with her lips.  The kiss relaxed Kara and as they parted she smiled and laid her forehead against Cat’s. “I’ll be alive a long time.”

Cat nodded.  “I just wondered if there was a way to leave him a message.”

Kara shrugged.  “We can try.”

Cat reached into her back pocket and handed Kara an envelope.  “Whatever you can do, Supergirl.”

Kara tucked the envelope away and drew Cat close again.  “Can we stop talking about my potential immortality and enjoy the few moments we have together?  Please?”

“Mmm.  How many moments do we have tonight?”  Cat found the hidden catch in Kara’s suit that would allow her to remove it quickly and quietly.

“As many as we want,”  Kara grinned and pulled Cat into a kiss.

 

XX

 

Winn and Mon-El stepped off the ship into an enormous hangar.  Imra was powering down the ship and would meet them for a debrief once Mon-El had introduced Winn to the rest of the Legion.

“Agent Schott.”  A handsome man in a flashy yellow suit met them at the door of the hangar.  “My name is Garth Ranzz. Right this way.”

Winn shook his hand.  “Call me Winn. Lead the way.”

“Before we get started,” Garth spoke as they walked, “this message was left for you by Supergirl.  We had very strict instructions to give it to you as soon as you landed.”

“Oh, wow, thanks.”

Garth led them into a comfortable room and ushered him to a seat where his induction into the Legion of Superheroes began.

 

XX

 

Later that night after a long day of learning about his new home and friends, Winn pulled Kara’s message from his pocket and drew it from the ancient envelope.  The paper had begun to fall apart. It resembled a relic he might find in a museum back home. He peered at the faded message on the paper. It was a series of numbers that at first glance didn’t make much sense, but below the numbers was one line of handwritten text.  Winn would recognize that distinct, confident scrawl anywhere.

 

> _**I left you a present, Winslow.** _

 

Coordinates.  Cat had left him something and the coordinates to find it.  He pulled out his tablet and ran a quick GPS search. He looked around him and found Imra making notes from a large monitor above her head.  “Hey Imra? If I needed to go somewhere kinda far away, could you help me get there?”

“Of course,” she smiled.  “We can teleport you anywhere you need to go.  Come. I’ll show you.”

In no more than a few minutes, Winn was standing in an open grassy area in the middle of a booming metropolis, vehicles flew overhead and as he looked up he was met with the intimidating sight of what used to be the Washington Monument.  It was now just a hologram, a projection of what used to be a shining beacon of the country’s capital. Winn checked his coordinates. With a shrug he began digging. With any luck, whatever it was wouldn’t be too deep.

He was right.  He hit something smooth and solid a little more than a foot down.  His hands were filthy and his knees were wet from evening dew, but from the earth came a shoebox sized metal box with a combination lock.  He punched in the remaining five digits from the note and the box popped open with a metallic click.

Laying completely unharmed inside the satin-lined box was a pristine, unopened bottle of Macallan 15.  Winn pulled it from the box and sat on the damp grass and laughed out loud. A fifteen year old bottle of scotch that was now a thousand.  

He had no glass and his hands were covered in dirt, but he popped the bottle open.  The old scent of oak and the astringent alcohol nearly knocked him over. With a loving smile he looked to the sky.  “Cheers, Ms. Grant.”

He held out the bottle as though toasting the empty air and drank deeply.  He coughed until his eyes watered and drank again. “I miss you too.”


End file.
